Spooks & Spirits
by Tjin
Summary: Warning: Darker than I wanted. Willow dresses as a different type of Ghost.


Willow Rosenberg was unhappy.

In her 'Come as you're not' moment, Buffy had splurged to get a full vampire dominatrix set with claws that would make Freddy Krueger cringe.

Swallowing heavily as she looked at herself in the mirror, Willow heard the unmistakable voice of Xander Harris downstairs.

Loosing her nerve, Willow threw the ghost sheet over her costume and went out for another uneventful Halloween.

--

Willow walked up to the house and knocked on the door, being careful of the claws still attached to her fingers, she already had a collection of cuts on her hands from the sharp weapons and didn't need more.

Whispering a mean word towards Buffy for refusing to help take them off before getting to school, Willow settled down as the older woman opened the door and greeted the children before frowning at the empty candy bucket she held.

Willow didn't hear the woman apologize, the sound of a rushing wind drowned out everything but the screams.

--

Haints, Haunts, Spooks, Ghosts, Poltergeist, Spirits, Ghouls, Gasts, Wraiths and Specters.

The words for the undead spirits are many and vary greatly.

Some are known only as a bizarre sighting out of the corner of the eye, sometimes in a mirror, others only as a chill on the back of the neck. Some are capable of limited control over objects while others have full forms and are capable of directly affecting or even possessing the living.

Of all of them, the two that evoke the most fear in the knowledgeable are the Wraith and the Specter. Of these, the Wraith surpasses its incorporeal opponent by leaps and bounds.

Had Ethan Rayne considered the possibility of a Wraith being created by his 'Fun' there is little doubt he would have called the whole thing off and stayed at home with a nice cup of tea. As it was, the Chaos Mage felt a chill run up the back of his neck as he finished the spell and the feeling of terror growing from a source unknown to him. Something was coming.

--

Willow Rosenberg looked around the world as it swirled in and out of focus before a sharp light drew her attention to the corpse on the ground.

Looking at the old woman that had been alive mere moments before, Willow saw the red thread leading to a single demon as a secondary thread lead from it towards the center of town.

The sound from a ghost is something that few in the mortal world are capable of hearing. The fierce snarl of the Wraith that had once been Willow Rosenberg was heard by only one being and the small demon that heard it never lived to hear anything else. As the demon dropped to the ground, Willow stared at the small child that had taken its place before her as it's spirit cried slightly before drifting away into a mist on the non existent wind.

Had she still been alive, Willow would have felt a deep sense of guilt and self-loathing at the death of the child. Being undead, her only feeling was one of vengeance for the fallen child. Watching as the grey strand withered from the corpse before her, Willow made her way in the direction all the strings were converging to.

She had a meeting to attend.

--

They say all roads lead to Rome. In this case all strings lead to Ethan's Costume Shop.

Looking the destination over, Willow snarled as the light sparkle from the building warned her that, aside from being a business, this place was also a dwelling. As such, there were few undead capable of breaching a threshold without the occupant giving permission for admittance. Fortunately for her, a Wraith was one of those few.

Moving to the side of the building, The Wraith pressed a hand against the barrier holding back the lesser spirits before jerking the appendage away as a spark snapped out and actually gave her a feeling of pain. Glaring at the wall, the Spirit made its way slowly around the dwelling, touching the brick at intervals as she searched for any weakness in the buildings defenses.

--

Inside, Ethan Jerked his head toward a blank section of wall as his wards warned him of a 'presence' attempting to gain admittance.

Swallowing past the feeling of fear that had been growing since he had cast the spell, Ethan wondered again if the wrath of his chosen god, directed at him for disrupting the spell, would be more terrifying than whatever was coming for him.

As he felt the wards tingle, he knew that whatever was outside had started to circle around him, Ethan stared at the bust and tried to calm himself again.

Janus would protect him.

--

The Wraith stared at the wall she had started at for a moment before deciding that subtly was not going to work and in the once great mind a decision was made, if silence was not the option, that left the more direct route.

Reaching through the mists, the Wraith gathered the souls of the forgotten dead to her with a thought.

As the legions of dead moved towards her, Willow felt herself strengthening as she fed off the fear and anger of the gathered spirits and redirected their anger towards the wards.

--

Ethan felt the growing terror as an almost palpable thing, he could taste the fear as it swirled around his doorstep. Rising from his chair, the Chaos Mage turned to the bust to break the magic. He never made it.

--

With a scream that would do the death summoning banshee proud, the Wraith ripped the wards apart and moved towards the main course.

The man inside curled on the floor in terror as the presence of the Wraith made itself known.

Projecting herself to the material world, the red haired ghost glared at the man that had the blood of hundreds of innocent children on his hands. Snarling at the mortal, she reached out and dragged the man towards her by the neck.

Feeling the power flow into her, Willow watched while the flesh beneath her hands aged and died at her touch. As the life flowed into her, the Wraith started to remember, her life… and his. Sneering at the man's terror, she moved forward.

Ethan Rayne died as many in the supernatural world had. At the hands of his own creation as the Wraith sucked the life out of him.

As the husk fell to the ground, the Spirit looked around and glared at the bust of the two faced god.

With a flick of her wrist the bust shattered.

--

(Next Morning.)

Willow sat on the doorstep of hell as she tried to ignore the sounds, the calls, the words of the murdered as they cried out to her for vengeance.

Looking up at the touch, Willow stared into the blue eyes of her friend before smiling. "No Buffy, nothing but some nightmares from last night." She lied before leaving the library.

As the redhead left her friends, she finally succumbed to the call.

With a thought, her flesh fled back to the ether as the Spirit of Vengeance moved towards the source of the greatest cries.

Next stop, Town Hall.

--

(A/N) Happy Halloween.

I have NO FREAKING CLUE where this came from… but I wrote this out in the space of an hour and it refuses to let me ignore it so… here it is.

The Wraith is a spirit of Vengeance (Sometimes it's also a Guardian, but those are few and far between.) The blood of her hands (From the claws.) the absorption of Ethan's life force and the empowerment of the Legion of lost souls trapped in Sunnydale allowed Willow to retain her possession.

Hope you all enjoy… and wow… No Xander in this one.

I do not own BtVS or the Myth of the Wraiths... if I owned a wraith I  
would probably run screaming... but I don't so it's all good.


End file.
